Not a Word

Fifty-Three

Friday

“I’m gonna do it,” Holden told Gage over the phone. “I’m gonna have it out with her, once and for all.”

“I don’t know,” Gage said. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Alicia and me, we’ve been talking. She’s been helping me through this. She says this is what I need to do.”

“What? What is it you need to do?”

“Fucking lay it on the line,” Holden said.

Gage could sense, from the sound of his voice, that Holden was on something. Gage had noticed this more often since his uncle

had been hanging out with Alicia. He’d become more emboldened, but that change had not been matched by an increase in good

judgment. Gage was worried he’d do something really serious, something he’d regret, and felt a duty to talk him out of it.

He considered telling his parents, or at least his father, that his brother was right on the edge, that he might have reached

the point where he would actually harm his mother. That he’d been harboring all this anger toward her, for so long, and it

had come to a boil.

But if Gage told his parents, he’d be betraying a confidence. Other than Alicia, Holden had never told anyone besides Gage

about the night Catherine committed a murder, and what she’d said to Holden to ensure he’d keep things secret.

“There’s shit you need to know about this family,” Holden had said in the lead-up to his disclosure to Gage.

“Your grandparents have been living a lie since forever, and I don’t know if there’s any point telling my brother—it’s too late to clue him in—but I’ve got to set you straight on who they really are. ”

And so he’d told him. All of it. Except for the little part about later finding the gun in the pond, restoring it to working

condition.

Gage thought he would have been happier never knowing. The longer he kept Holden’s secret, the more complicit he felt. There

were days he wanted to tell his parents, but suppose he did? What were they supposed to do with that kind of information?

It wasn’t like his dad was going to turn in his own mother. It would destroy everyone’s lives, and the thing was, Gage valued

his relationship with his grandfather too much to put it in jeopardy. How would he feel if his grandson spilled the beans

on something he’d been keeping secret all this time?

So Gage shared Holden’s burden. Alicia took on some of the weight too. Gage didn’t know, of course, that Alicia had her own

agenda, that she’d figured out Holden’s mother was her aunt’s killer.

Alicia, Holden had told Gage, said he needed to stand up for himself. Put things right.

“I can’t keep it bottled up any longer. I’m like this pressure cooker, ready to explode, and one way to deal with that is

to let the steam out a little at a time, but that’s a slow process, could take, you know, years. Whereas if you just take

the lid right off, that’s it, you’re done with it.”

“What’s that actually mean?” Gage asked.

“I have to confront her,” Holden said.

“Like whaddya call it, an intervention?” Gage had seen something on TV about one of those.

“Kinda, except in an intervention, it’s a whole bunch of people who sit down with one guy and get him to see what an asshole

he’s been.” Holden had smiled at this. “I’ve been that guy.”

The time had come, Holden said. He would tell his mother how making him keep a secret to protect her had eaten him from the

inside out.

“Isn’t a mother’s love supposed to be unconditional?” Holden asked Gage.

“I guess.”

“I mean, even Hitler’s mother loved him, right? Maybe she died before the Holocaust, but still.” He recalled one of Alicia’s

examples. “Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother still had weekly phone calls with him when he was in prison, so she must have still loved

him.”

“Who’s Jeffrey Dahmer?”

The point, Holden said, was even if he’d told on her, he wanted to believe she’d still love him. Sure, she’d be pissed, but

there’d still be a mother-son bond.

“What about Grandpa?” Gage asked.

“Any time I’ve ever tried to talk to him, he shuts me down. We don’t talk about that night, he’d say. Ever. But he never,

you know, said he’d disown me or anything. He didn’t threaten me.”

Over time, Alicia had upped her game. It wasn’t enough, she said, that there be a verbal showdown between Holden and his mother.

“You need to do something that ends this, once and for all.”

Gage was never present for those conversations, but Holden would tell him Alicia was pressuring him to do something he wasn’t

comfortable with. “It’s not like I haven’t fantasized about, you know, having it out with Mom once and for all, but that’s

just dark shit that happens in my head, not something I would do.”

Gage had a bad feeling about what Holden meant by those comments, but he didn’t believe Holden would actually harm his grandmother.

If he’d thought Holden was actually going to kill her, he’d have broken his confidence, told his parents. What Gage didn’t

know at the time was that Alicia continued to lean on his uncle. It was the only way, she’d said, he’d ever be free.

And slowly, Holden began to come around. He even thought it might be the only way he’d ever be free of Alicia.

I’ll do it if you get off my back.

He could see himself doing it. Walking up to his mother, pulling that trigger.

On that fateful morning, when he’d been up late the night before, getting high, he’d reached a decision.

This was the day.

He rose early. He got out the gun, made sure it was loaded. Maybe, he told himself, at the last minute, he wouldn’t actually

shoot her, but boy oh boy would he scare the living shit out of her. That might be almost as good. She’d never forget how

he’d stood up to her.

His last words to Gage that morning over the phone: “This is the day, man! This is it! It’s happening!”

Gage was scared.

He hopped on his skateboard and headed over to his grandparents’ house, pushing that board faster than it had ever gone before.

He wanted to get there before Holden arrived, talk him out of whatever it was he was planning to do, warn his grandparents

if he could.

Holden’s Honda was already there when Gage arrived.

He hopped off the board, ran up to the front door, and found it unlocked. Once inside, he called out: “Holden!”

“Gage!”

Not Holden’s voice, but his grandfather’s. Coming from upstairs.

“Gage, don’t come up!”

But Gage was up those steps two at a time and followed his grandfather’s voice to the master bedroom.

And came to an abrupt stop when he saw what was happening.

Brent Chartwell was sitting up in bed, propped on the headboard, sheets covering him to his waist and naked from there up.

Beside him, a woman cowering under the covers, someone Gage had never seen before. She looked at him for a second, terrified,

and then back at Holden, who was standing near the foot of the bed, on his father’s side, gun in hand.

He didn’t have it pointed directly at either his father or the woman, but nor was it down at his side.

“Who are you?” Holden said to the woman.

“Holden, please,” his father said, keeping his voice very calm. “You need to put that down, and then we can all have a talk

and—”

“Who is she?” he asked, this time looking at his dad. “What the fuck is going on? Where’s Mom?”

“She’s out, son. With friends.”

“I wanted to talk to Mom!” He sounded like a child who’d just been told his trip to Disney World had been canceled. Again,

looking at the woman, he asked, “Who are you?”

The woman raised her palms, not wanting to appear threatening. “Holden, my name is Leah. Leah Kennard. And . . . I’m your—”

Brent cut her off. “There are things we need to talk about, but we can’t do it under these conditions. Why don’t you go downstairs,

we’ll get dressed and come down, and we can all—”

“I don’t understand!” Holden said. He was manic, waving the gun around.

“Hey,” Gage said. He’d taken a few steps into the room and was only a couple of feet to Holden’s left. “Come on, this isn’t

cool. You can’t be doing this.”

“Gage is right,” Brent said. “We all need to calm down and talk.”

“Give me that,” Gage said, looking at the gun. He went to reach out for it, but Holden recoiled.

“No no no no,” he said, the gun going up and down. “I had this all figured out! I have things I want to say!”

“I bet you do,” Brent said. “And I want to hear them.”

“Not to you!” he said. “And not to her.”

“I want to tell him,” Leah said, looking at Brent. “It might help.”

“Not like this,” Brent said.

Leah didn’t look persuaded. She looked at Holden, who was still waving the gun, and said, “There’s something you need to know.

I’m your—”

“Give me that,” Gage said to Holden.

For a second, it looked as though Holden was ready to surrender the gun to his nephew, but as he was about to hand it over, he reconsidered, drawing back. But Gage grabbed his wrist, got his hand on the gun.

Leah screamed and turned her body away, looking like she intended to drop off the side of the bed.

But in that moment when Gage pried it out of Holden’s hand, his fingers scrambling for purchase, somehow the gun went off.

The trigger. You didn’t have to draw hard on it.

Once the blast had passed, the room was stunned into silence.

It took a few seconds for everyone to grasp what had happened.

Leah Kennard had been shot in the back of the head.

Gage, struck dumb by his own actions, dropped the gun to the floor.

Holden said, “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!” He had his hands on his head and was starting to turn in circles. “Oh fuck!”

At which point, he ran.

Gage watched him take off down the hallway, then turned to look at his grandfather, who hadn’t moved. He was breathing shallowly,

looking at Gage, then at Leah, then back at Gage.

Gage had yet to speak. He appeared to be in shock.

“It’s okay,” Brent said. “It . . . it was an accident. Gage, Gage, look at me. Gage.”

Slowly, the boy focused in on his grandfather. “I didn’t . . . I was just trying . . .”

“I know you were. Gage, I need you to look at me, and you need to listen very carefully.”

“I . . . thought he was going to . . . I had to get it away . . .”

“Gage. Gage!”

Brent’s tone was like a slap in the face. Gage took a breath before looking at his grandfather.

“There are things we’re going to have to do,” Brent said with forced calm. “You tried to do what was right, and you shouldn’t

be punished for that. You’re a good boy, you’ve always made me proud, and I want to see you grow up to be a fine young man.

We can’t let what happened here do anything to stop that.”

“But . . . it happened. It’s . . . I’ll tell the police I didn’t mean it. I—”

“You won’t have to tell the police anything.”

“You’ll tell them. You’ll tell them I didn’t mean it.”

“I won’t have to tell them either. But I’ll let them know.”

Gage looked at him, puzzled, not understanding.

Brent, thinking, said, “I’ll leave them a note.”

Gage slowly shook his head, still not understanding what his grandfather was up to.

“First, I want you to pick up that gun and give it to me,” Brent said. “Grab it by the butt and be very, very careful. That’s

it, that’s good.”

Gage gave him the gun. Brent used the bed’s top sheet to thoroughly wipe it down, erasing any fingerprints that might already

be on it.

“Now, you have to listen to me,” he said. “I want you to go into the bathroom and wash your hands and up your arms like you’ve

never done before. Like a doctor getting ready for surgery.”

Gage was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, no jacket.

“Why—”

“Just do that, and when you’re done I want you to go into my study and get me a pad, one of the ones that has my name on the

top, and a pen. You got that?”

Gage nodded.

He went into the bathroom, did as his grandfather said, and lathered up. Once he had thoroughly washed his hands and arms

up to his elbows, he dried off, then went to the study and found Brent’s personalized stationery. He brought the pad, and

a pen, back to Brent, who hadn’t moved.

“That’s good, that’s good,” he said. “You washed up like I said?”

Gage nodded.

“You know why I had you do that?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.” He wiped the pen with the bedsheet, just as he’d done with the gun, then did the same with the front and back of the

notepad. With the pen, he wrote a short note, tore it off, and gave it to Gage.

“That’s for your uncle. And you’re going to need to catch up to him, tell him there’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to take care of everything.”

Then he started writing another note, which he set on the bedside table to be found later.

“I don’t understand,” Gage said, although he was starting to, and he didn’t like where this was going.

“You remember what I told you when you stole those chips?”

Gage tried to think back.

“You said I was an idiot.”

Brent smiled. “I probably did. But that’s not what I’m referring to now. I don’t remember exactly, but I told you I’d give

my life for you if I had to. And I meant that.”

Gage felt himself going weak.

“I love you more than anything in the world,” Brent said. “I truly do. Right from when you were a baby. Loved going to those

car shows with you. I don’t know how they’ll sort things out once I’m gone, but I’d like to see you end up with my Barracuda.

It’s a babe magnet. Maybe not for me, but for you? It’ll work like a charm. Couple of years from now, you get your license,

you’ll be able to drive it.”

“I don’t want your car.”

“So sell it, I don’t care. Look, I’ve had a good run. You? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I don’t want to see that

messed up. And to be honest, part of me is ready. I’m tired of all the bullshit.”

“No, wait, you don’t—”

“What I wrote down there,” he said, nodding toward the slip of paper, “that’s no lie. This is all my fault. There were things

I could have done, should have done, differently a long time ago, and if I had, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Holden wouldn’t be what he’s turned

out to be. None of what’s happened here is on you. It’s on me.”

“Please, you don’t—”

“But here’s the deal. You can’t ever speak of this. You were never here. And you’ve got to find your uncle, quick as you can, and tell him the same thing. Tell him it’s going to be okay. Tell him I love him, and that he doesn’t have to worry.”

Gage was crying.

“Hey, pal, I’d give you a hug, but you might leave a tear on me or a hair or something. Can’t go messing up the evidence,

right?” Brent put on a cheerful face. “Live your life, kid. Now get the hell out of here. And don’t steal anymore Doritos.”

Gage backed slowly out of the room, turned and headed for the stairs. As he was reaching the front door, he heard the shot.

And then he went to my brother’s house, told Holden what his father had done, that everything was sorted and it would be okay

if they never spoke about this again, and then I arrived, and it was Gage I’d heard when I got there, slipping out the back

door, leaving before he had a chance to give Holden the note his father had written just for him.